


imagine this:

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2011 [7]
Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine life as a sequence of moments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	imagine this:

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/gifts).



> **Prompt/Prompter:** The Fast and the Furious, potentially [By, Daybreak We’ll be Gone!Verse](http://pprfaith.livejournal.com/71890.html), Brian/Han, _Drifting in Tokyo_ \- for jedibuttercup
> 
> Hold the presses, I actually don’t have anything to say.

+

Imagine life as a sequence of pictures. Snapshots, in Technicolor, with the lighting cranked up and all the edges sharper than reality.

Imagine color caught forever, motion perfect, unblurred. Memory unfading.

Life isn’t like that. Of course it isn’t. We forget things, they fade and grow dull, get twisted by memory, bleached by the sun and the years, washed out by rain.

Colors run.

But some moments just _don’t_. They fix themselves in our memory, more powerful, more perfect than any other. It’s like they’re burned into our skulls, our skin. They’re unfading.

They’re like those snapshots, so bright, so loud, and so much larger than life.

Imagine life as a sequence of pictures.

Imagine this:

+

Han is sitting on the hood of his car, leaning back on his hands and watching as Brian wedges his feet into the wooden railing fencing in the lookout point they’ve stumbled across.

They’re high up in the mountains, above the organized chaos that is Tokyo, above the pollution and noise. The air is so thin that the sky seems impossibly bluer and it’s silent, except for nature and a few far off cars, which, as far as Han is concerned, is one of the best sounds in the world.

He closes his eyes, tips back his head, lets the sun shine on his face. When he opens his eyes again Brian’s found his foothold and is stranding up straight, arms spread, staring down into the valley like he’s considering jumping down.

He probably is. That’s just the kind of person Brian is. It’s the kind of person Han is, too.

He looks back over his shoulder, sees that Han is watching him and gives one of those supernova smiles that can blot out the sun. “I am the king of the world,” he announces grandly, flapping his arms like a goose. Maybe an airplane.

Han snorts. “You’re a fuckhead,” he corrects.

Brian laughs until he tips backwards and lands ass over teakettle in the dirt.

+

They’ve been screwing around Toyko – in more than one sense of the word – for about three months when Han kidnaps Brian, blindfold and all. “Got a surprise,” he says, and punches the idiot when he tries to cheat and take a look.

The jig is pretty much up when Brian hears him roll up the gate to drive into the shop, but Han still enjoys the dumb-struck look on his face when he takes a look around the place. Four bays, high tech tools everywhere and a first floor loft for fun and games. Cars and party. That’s pretty much how they roll these days, what with spanking new, clean IDs, too much money in the bank and nothing to chase after.

(Dom and Mia are still South America, living in a nice little condo by the beach. Dom’s hooking up with the cop bitch from Rio and Mia is living it up with the locals. But they don’t talk about that.)

“Seriously,” Brian asks, looking a bit wide-eyed and a lot amazed.

“No,” Han replies, rolling his eyes. “I’m shitting you.”

“Asshole,” Brian shoots back, grabbing Han by the shoulder, pulling him in for a hug and then, to hell with it, kisses him, sloppy, hungry, greedy, _happy_.

+

Predictably, the both get bored. The racing scene is ace, but the guy who runs it is a yakuza baby.

The crime connection isn’t really the problem, especially since Han is waffling over whether or not to get down and dirty with the guy. The problem is that they both know that, given some time to get their drifting up to snuff, they’d beat him and pissing off the yaks is not on anyone’s five-year-plan.

They intend to stay here, for a while at least. Been a long time since either of them had the time to grow roots anywhere.

So they don’t race because they’d win and in the end Brian doesn’t let Han get in with Takashi and the yaks, because he likes his ass attached to the rest of him and he knows Han. He’d fuck Takashi over, simply because he’s stupid enough to _let_ himself be fucked over. It wouldn’t end well.

So they get bored.

They trick out cars by day, fuck around a lot – with each other and whatever comes their way on hot legs – and waste their time playing games and drinking. It’s almost normal, that’s the freaky thing.

Until they pick up Twinkie. They don’t mean to, but the kid’s just there one day, in their garage, with his totally insane Hulk car, talking a mile a minute and treating them like they’re dumb mechanics. So when Brian calls his fuel injection a piece of shit and spends five minutes expounding on why, the kid gets big eyes.

And there’s this moment, this split second, where Twinkie gapes at Brian and Brian looks up at Han, who’s watching from the railing of the loft, quietly laughing.

Twinkie says, “Can you teach me?”

Brian makes a face and shrugs and Han shrugs back and they both think the exact same thing, even though that doesn’t even make sense.

 _This is how it starts_ , they think, and they have no idea _what_ , but there it is. Han raises one eyebrow, Brian flips him the bird and Twinkie never quite leaves.

+

They’ve been wasting time for over a year when Han looks up from his computer one night and finds six, seven kids curled up on the couches around him. Reiko is sleeping all over that boy she dragged in last week and Twinkie is fighting over something with Alden and it’s loud and chaotic and it’s also two in the morning and shouldn’t the babies be home and in bed?

Only Han knows kids like them, was one of them himself. They don’t want to go home because there’s nothing to go home to.

“I’m thinking bunk beds,” Brian says conversationally, throwing himself into the empty space next to Han, limbs akimbo. They’re touching from knee to neck, but he still scoots closer, yawns and rests his head on the back of the couch.

“Bunk beds?” Han asks, dubiously. Because ‘bunk beds’ means ‘permanence’, means ‘keeping them’, means ‘responsibility’.

Responsibility and Han are not friends. Responsibility and Han are not in the same postal code.

“I’m tired of tripping over them on my way to take a piss, man.” Brian drawls with a thick southern accent that’s as fake most things about him.

Han shakes his head because, well, shit, they’ve been crashing here for the past month, haven’t they? And how exactly did he miss that?

“Fuck,” he says, quietly, but heartfelt.

Brian laughs but tries to hide it when Han glares, dims it down to a smile, all teeth and crinkled eyes. Han shoves him away with a hand to his face and Brian laughs again, louder, as he lands on the floor, dragging Han down with him by his wrist.

They break the laptop roughhousing and both come away with split lips that they keep pulling because they’re both grinning like lunatics.

“O-kay,” Reiko says slowly, and then devolves into a stream of Japanese that basically means they’re both insane and idiots and what the fuck.

Han launches himself at her and tickles her until she’s screaming for mercy and from there it’s pretty much a free for all.

+

And then there’s Sean, with his bright eyes and bright smiles, fuel in his blood and too much hunger in his heart and he’s so much like them that it hurts to look at him.

Han gives him his car, knowing that he’ll lose, gives it to him only because he also knows the kid is going to be breathtaking when he does.

+

They go for a drive sometimes, just the two of them. Together, or each in his own car. Sometimes they race, sometimes they just cruise. Eventually they always end up in a cheap restaurant where Brian inevitably fucks up his chop sticks and then mocks Han’s Japanese, which isn’t actually any worse than his own.

They find a quiet place after that and fuck on the hood of the car, slow and hot and careful, like it’s something precious. They never used to do that before, when they were both still chasing Dom, each in his own way.

Han says so, one night, all fucked out and languid and Brian ruffles his hair, says, “That is so fucked up.”

And it is, because neither of them has ever actually _had_ Dom and it’s all club of jilted lovers and Han hates that. Hates that he wants to answer with, “We’re free now,” because that implies that they weren’t before and that’s just not true.

So instead he just says, “Yeah,” and kisses Brian some more.

By silent agreement, they don’t turn toward home until dawn.

+

They’re returning from one of their weekly trips to grease up the yakuza so they’re left alone when they hear the kids in the loft, talking about racing.

They’re all this one’s better than this one and did you hear about that one and, inevitably, the conversation lands on Rio and the insane assholes that pulled the heist, and did you see the footage of the safe-chase?

That’s what they call it. The safe-chase. The two of them slink into the room mostly unobserved, just listening.

“Man,” Twinkie says, “did you see how those two drove? Perfect sync man, perfect sync.”

“And that reverse,” Sean throws in, through a mouthful of chips. “That was some serious shit.”

“The bridge,” Reiko argues.

“Did’ya know they never actually figured out how they did it?” Sean asks, conversationally. “All that money, jus’ gone.”

They fling around theories, from a decoy to hidden compartments to the money was never in the safe.

It’s Han, hand stuck in Sean’s chips bag, who finally says, “Switched the safes.”

“During the chase?”

He nods.

“Impossible.”

He shakes his head. “Remember how the hijacked cop cars cleared away the real police?”

They all nod like good little students. “There was a window. Fifteen seconds without eyes on the safe.”

“How d’you know that?” Twinkie asks and when Han says nothing, he loses his shit. “No way, man, no way! You can’t actually… you were there?” When Brian shrugs modestly, he yells, “ _Both of you?!?”_

There’s an uproar until Sean manages to ask, “You two did the safe?”

“Nah. I had one of the cop cars.”

They all go wide-eyed, which is sort of adorable.

“And you, Brian?”

Han slaps him on the shoulder, declares, “Ladies and gents, meet the guy who dragged a safe through downtown Rio. In reverse.”

Brian elbows him, the fed in him still telling him to shut up and keep mum, but Han knows those kids. He trusts them. Besides, who’d they go blabbing to? Anyone worth worrying about already knows.

There’s more exclamations and then the inevitable question. “So who was the other driver? You guys were perfect together.”

They look at each other and Brian smiles because he always does, but it doesn’t blot out the sun.

“Just a guy we used to roll with.”

+

When Sean shows up with a duffel bag late one night, Han doesn’t have to ask what happened. He knows. He was Sean once, and he remembers the look his mom gave him, bone tired and disappointed, when she finally couldn’t take it anymore and kicked him out.

Instead he tells Twinkie to find Sean a bunk while Brian goes outside to check on Sean’s car, make sure he’s got all his shit.

He’s coming back with the keys dangling from one hand in time to see Twinkie clap Sean on the back, say, “Man, you know you coulda come to me, too, right?”

Sean shrugs. “Yeah. This was just the first place I thought of, ya know?”

Brian throws the kid his keys back and comes to a halt next to Han.

“Gravity,” he says, very slowly, like he’s testing the word.

“Well,” Han says, taking a long swig of his beer. “Fuck me.”

Next to him, Brian stands very still.

+

The garage does actually have an apartment in-built, apart from the loft space they use to party. Han and Brian share it, even though Han’s not quite sure how it happened.

The place is a mixture of Brian’s bland, impersonal apartment in LA and Han’s perpetually cluttered places all over the world. The clutter part is evidenced by him stumbling over a pile of dirty laundry on his way to the coffee pot one morning.

Brian, who is a morning person, damn him very much, is already sitting at the crappy formica table, sipping the rat poison he calls coffee. The stuff’s disgusting, but it’s better than nothing, so Han swipes the mug from him and drains it in one go, even though it’s still scalding.

Brian tries to grab his mug back but he’s too slow. By the time Han let’s go, it’s empty. He slaps Han on the stomach with the back of his hand and then settles in for a good pout, which, seriously, should be forbidden. Brian’s pout is criminal. Han is pretty good at looking innocent, but Brian could charm the socks off a naked man.

So he folds like a house of cards, bends down and kisses that pout away. For his own sanity.

Behind him, someone makes a choked noise and he turns around to find Reiko in the doorway, glassy-eyed, mouth open. He reaches out and shuts it for her, before rolling his eye. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know we’re fucking around.”

She babbles something, grabs the sugar she apparently came for and then flees, leaving the two men alone.

“This is good,” Brian finally says, idly scratching at his navel, sprawled like a porn star at the tiny table.

Han hums in question from the stove, where he’s trying really hard not to burn eggs and failing.

“Not hiding,” Brian answers. Outside the sun’s shining through the smog and Han decides they’ll go for a drive later. Much later.

+

“Dom called,” Brian says, leaning against the wall when Han comes home late one morning, hickeys all over his neck and perfume clinging to his clothes.

He stiffens, waiting for the inevitable doom. Instead Brian rolls off the wall and taps Han’s jaw with one finger. When he tilts his head, Brian starts smudging at something with his thumb. It comes away lipstick red. He licks his finger, smiling around it.

Then he says, “Letty’s alive. Her prints showed up at a heist in Berlin. MO has Clan Toretto written all over it. Dom’s going after her. Wants to know if we’re in.”

Han almost laughs out loud, because that’s so damn typical. Dom collecting two former lovers to go and save a third.

Club of jilted lovers. He’s sort of surprised, honestly, that Dom apparently knew where they are and hasn’t come for them like the greedy, possessive fucker he is. But he’s going after Letty.

If Han ever needed proof of his position in Dom’s life… but he didn’t. He really didn’t.

“We going?” he asks.

+

The biggest advantage of Germany is its Autobahn, where no-one bats an eyelash if you shoot past at one-eighty.

Brian is slouched behind the wheel of the rental Merc they’re making do with until they find something real to drive and Han is half asleep in the passenger seat, lulled by the smooth asphalt under them.

Back on the road again and all that crap. Han always knew Tokyo was just a pit stop, couldn’t ever be more than that with Brian at his side. Apart they’re restless. Together… well, they made it almost two years.

That’s one and a half more than Han’s managed since he set out on his own at the tender age of sixteen.

“Are we there yet?” he asks, petulantly and teasingly.

“Almost,” Brian shoots back, not rising to the bait.

He smiles, though. Flash. Han goes blind for a moment.

+

Imagine life as a sequence of pictures.

Imagine this moment and the next and the next. Imagine the bright plume of flame of an exploding car, the black fierceness of tire tracks on asphalt. Imagine two men in a car, driving at high speeds, toward and not from, always the night before and never the morning after. Bright, bubbling joy, deep, hollow sorrow. Imagine the light in your eyes, white teeth in a smile that can blot out the sun.

Imagine this never ends because a sequence of instances, of bright, perfect still frames has no beginning and no end. Imagine permanence in a world designed to move at two hundred miles an hour and never stop.

Imagine.

Better yet: _Live_.

+


End file.
